It’s often said that a tie in sports is like kissing your sister. From the perspective of Omar and Brandon Figueroa, then, it must make perfect sense that Mario Barrios keeps fighting to 12-round draws. Barrios, after all, is the guy who routinely kisses their sister.
Barrios, you see, has a daughter with Omayra Figueroa, and he has settled for a draw in each of his past two fights.
Barrios is the sister-kissin’-est guy in boxing.
When “El Azteca” steps into the ring on Saturday night against Ryan Garcia, he will be putting himself in a position to potentially record his third draw in a row – a statistical oddity that would, as best I can tell, be unprecedented at world-class level in the modern era.
On November 15, 2024, in front of a massive audience watching on Netflix shortly before Jake Paul and Mike Tyson stepped into the ring, defending welterweight beltholder Barrios went in as a prohibitive -1500 favorite against Abel Ramos and squeaked by in a barnburner by the all-over-the-place scores of 114-112 Ramos, 116-110 Barrios and 113-113.
On July 19, 2025, Barrios was again a solid favorite, in the -300 range, against a 46-year-old Manny Pacquiao, and again went home without a win but with his belt, prevailing 115-113 on one scorecard while the other two cards had a level 114-114 fight.
Throughout his 29-2-2 (18 KOs) career, Barrios has proven to be a capable-and-sturdy fighter but one with a tendency to fight up or down to the level of his opposition – leading him to end up in more close-distance fights than your average boxer. So it’s not pure random chance that he’s picked up a split draw and a majority draw in his past two outings. And it wouldn’t be the most inconceivable outcome if his fight with Garcia ended in a draw too.
The sportsbooks have the odds on a draw on Saturday in the range of 15-to-1 (FanDuel) or 16-to-1 (DraftKings). The odds of a draw in Barrios’ fight with Pacquiao were in that same ballpark, while in the Ramos fight a draw was about 22-to-1.
So the odds of Barrios picking up three draws in a row against these three particular opponents would have been a little over 5,000-to-1.
If it happens, it lands somewhere near the very top of the list of most bizarre stats in the history of the sport. Maybe in the history of sports.
But let’s not get ahead of ourselves. Barrios hasn’t gone back-to-back-to-back with the sister kissing yet. But he is already in the history books with two draws in a row in 12-round title fights. Here are 10 additional historical fun facts (or fun opinions, or fun lists) about draws in boxing.
1. Orlando Salido was the last before Barrios to record back-to-back title fight draws.
I suppose I should place an asterisk on this entire article and note that all of these “fun facts” are factual… as best I can tell based on BoxRec, Google, printed reference materials I possess and the AI that I consulted with and triple-checked because I don’t trust any of it.
That said, I’m pretty darned confident Barrios is the first to go back-to-back in nearly a decade, since Mexican junior lightweight Salido got a split draw against Roman “Rocky” Martinez in a 2015 war and a majority draw against Francisco Vargas in the 2016 fight of the year.
Slightly more recently, Badou Jack managed two 12-round majority draws in a three-fight span in 2017-18 (with a fifth-round stoppage of Nathan Cleverly sandwiched in between), and more recently than that, in 2021, journeyman heavyweight Jerry Forrest took Zhilei Zhang and Michael Hunter to consecutive draws in non-title 10-rounders.
2. Twice in modern times, opponents fought to two draws against each other in title fights.
In January 1985, flyweight titlist Soon Chun Kwon of South Korea defended against countryman Jong Kwan Chung – a seemingly unworthy challenger with a record of 11-8-2 – and the result was a 15-round split draw. After Kwon scored a successful title defense that April against Shinobu Kawashima, he granted Chung a July rematch. And the result was another 15-round split draw. They fought a third time, that December, and Chung took the title by fourth-round TKO, becoming a beltholder with just his 13th win in 25 fights.
A little over two decades later, bantamweights Volodymyr Sidorenko and Ricardo Cordoba equaled the anomalous feat. Sidorenko retained his title by 12-round majority draw against Cordoba in March 2006, and a year later, in March ’07, with one successful defense in between, Sidorenko escaped with another majority draw. For Cordoba, there would be no third crack at his nemesis.
3. The record for most draws in a row for one boxer is five.
Australia’s Albert Griffiths, known in the boxing world as Young Griffo, had quite the campaign in the spring of 1888, a couple of years prior to becoming featherweight champ.
Over a span of about five weeks, from April 30 to June 6, Griffo fought to an eight-round draw with Young Pluto (BoxRec notes it was “possibly a prearranged draw”), a four-round draw by “newspaper decision” against Jack King, an eight-round draw against Matt Ritchie, and two more draws – over unclear numbers of rounds – against Young Pluto.
Whatever the correct numbers, five draws in a row in five weeks is remarkable. Then again, when you fight 34 times in a calendar year, as BoxRec says Griffo did in 1888, the law of averages says you may string some draws together.
4. In 1930, two boxers who would ultimately combine for 73 draws fought to a draw.
If you’ve read enough boxing history books, you’ve probably heard of Len Wickwar – a British lightweight who, according to BoxRec, finished 340-87-43 after fighting 4,007 professional rounds. Those 43 draws may be the most in boxing history, depending on your source.
On March 28, 1930, Wickwar took on sub-.500 Scottish fighter Sandy McEwan. One source on the internet indicated McEwan finished with 51 draws. BoxRec says he had a mere 30 ties, to go with 40 wins and 119 defeats. Using BoxRec’s figures, that’s 73 draws between them. But that would mean counting one draw twice, since that March 28, 1930 fight was a draw that went on both of their records.
In the rematch 17 days later, Wickwar won by decision. And before you ask, yes, both men fought in the interim. Twice apiece, in fact. Remember that the next time a modern boxer can’t be troubled to fight twice in one calendar year.
5. Argentina was the undisputed home of the draw in the ‘60s and ‘70s.
There was just something about the way they scored fights in Argentina a half-century or so ago, as the country’s top fighters’ records are littered with draws.
Middleweight great Carlos Monzon went 87-3-9, including back-to-back draws twice when he was on his way up – part of a stretch in which he went 4-0-5.
Fellow hall of famer Nicolino Locche posted a professional record of 117-4-14, with one stretch similar to Monzon’s in which he went 4-1-5 over 10 fights.
Junior middleweight Miguel Angel Castellini’s 74-8-12 record included two occurrences of back-to-back draws.
And light heavyweight Avenamar Peralta topped them all in the draw department with a record of 103-32-15 that included back-to-back draws in 1968 against the same opponent, Jose Menno, and a run of three draws in a row in ’77. And Peralta showed versatility in those three straight draws: one was a six-rounder, one an eight-rounder and one a 10-rounder, and all three took place in Europe, not Peralta’s native Argentina.
6. The most famous draw in boxing history took place in the 1990s.
There’s a reasonable debate to be had over what fight is the most famous ever to end in a draw. But that reasonable debate comes down to two options – a 1993 fight for the unofficial pound-for-pound title and a 1999 bout to unify the heavyweight title.
On September 10, 1993, at the Alamodome in San Antonio, Texas, Pernell Whitaker and Julio Cesar Chavez fought to a 12-round majority draw that almost the entire world, aside from two official judges, scored in Whitaker’s favor.
On March 13, 1999, at Madison Square Garden, Whitaker’s 1984 US Olympic teammate Evander Holyfield battled Lennox Lewis to a split draw that almost the entire world, aside from two official judges, scored in Lewis’ favor.
Both were major fights and massive controversies. One or the other is boxing’s most famous draw. Other contenders and fringe contenders include Marvin Hagler-Vito Antuofermo I, Sugar Ray Leonard-Tommy Hearns II, Manny Pacquiao-Juan Manuel Marquez I, Azumah Nelson-Jeff Fenech I, James Toney-Mike McCallum I, Michael Dokes-Mike Weaver II, Nigel Benn-Chris Eubank II and Gene Fullmer-Joey Giardello.
7. The most historically significant draw ever was Ceferino Garcia-Henry Armstrong.
Yes, the 1940 fight between Garcia and Armstrong is more historically significant than an undisputed heavyweight title fight or an unofficial pound-for-pound title fight because the draw decision here was the difference between Armstrong claiming four titles and only claiming three titles, back when winning titles in four divisions would have been unprecedented.
“Homicide Hank” famously added the welterweight and lightweight titles in 1938 to the featherweight title he’d won in ’37 – holding all three simultaneously – and on March 1, 1940, he challenged Garcia for a middleweight title. It was scheduled for just 10 rounds, and Armstrong, weighing only 142lbs, settled for a draw in a fight some historical records indicate he deserved to win.
He returned to welterweight after that and never got another crack at the middleweight throne.
8. The most controversial draw ever was Jack Johnson-Battling Jim Johnson.
This December 19, 1913 heavyweight title fight, Jack Johnson’s sixth defense, had it all, in terms of controversial elements.
The fight was in Paris and was officially deemed a draw on points after 10 rounds when the champ couldn’t continue due to an arm injury. In other jurisdictions or in other eras, Battling Jim would have been declared the winner by TKO and the new heavyweight champion of the world, but in this case “The Galveston Giant” kept his title with a draw.
On top of that, the BoxRec details of the fight include the following: “One ringside report said that the spectators loudly protested that the men were not fighting and demanded their money back. Jack Johnson said he injured his left arm in the third round and could not use it, but ringsiders said he used his left often and likely fractured it when both fell to the mat in the 10th round. Post-fight examination revealed a slight fracture of the radial in his left arm.” And then there’s this, also via BoxRec: “the French Boxing Federation had started an investigation of the fight, believing [Jack] Johnson’s nephew Gus Rhodes had passed himself [off] as Battling Jim Johnson.”
So the challenger may or may not have been who he said he was, the fans protested the apparent lack of effort and the champ may or may not have had an injury that perhaps should have caused the title to change hands. That’s a lot more controversy than your average case of “one boxer got screwed by the judges”.
9. The longest draw ever went 42 rounds and lasted two hours and 10 minutes.
Where were you on April 17, 1860? That was the date of the Tom Sayers-John Heenan fight that most accounts indicate was declared a draw (although living witnesses who can vouch for that are a little hard to come by).
This fight in Farnborough, England, between Brit Sayers and American Heenan was, according to The Boxing Register, “the first great international heavyweight championship match”, and it sounds like a doozy.
Sayers broke his right arm in the sixth round. Heenan broke his left hand in the eighth. Heenan dominated the fight, but by the 37th round his eyes were so swollen he could hardly see. Sayers was in trouble on the ropes – until someone cut the ropes, the crowd surged into the ring, the ref skedaddled and the fighters kept going for five more rounds until the violent fight was stopped and declared a draw.
Sayers-Heenan predates hashtags, but still … #boxing, amiright?
10. There are four “modern” category Hall of Famers with more than 10 draws.
Holman Williams is in fourth place among modern IBHOF inductees with 11 draws. Joe “Old Bones” Brown sits in third with 13. The aforementioned Argentine Locche had 14.
And the king is Albert “Chalky” Wright, who fought to a draw 16 times.
So, Mario Barrios, even if you pick up your third draw in a row this weekend, you still have a very long way to go.
Eric Raskin is a veteran boxing journalist with nearly 30 years of experience covering the sport for such outlets as BoxingScene, ESPN, Grantland, Playboy, and The Ring (where he served as managing editor for seven years). He also co-hosted The HBO Boxing Podcast, Showtime Boxing with Raskin & Mulvaney, The Interim Champion Boxing Podcast with Raskin & Mulvaney, and Ring Theory. He has won three first-place writing awards from the BWAA, for his work with The Ring, Grantland, and HBO. Outside boxing, he is the senior editor of CasinoReports and the author of 2014’s The Moneymaker Effect. He can be reached on X, BlueSky, or LinkedIn, or via email at RaskinBoxing@yahoo.com.
